Tuesday, 18 March 2008

Sweet memories are very evocative and memories of sweets very nostalgic for me..I have vivid snapshots of my childhood defined by the sugary treats that I thrived upon.Our sweetie consumption was largely confined to Saturdays when my father would return from work at lunchtime and bring with him a paper bag with the best selection of chocolate confectionery of the time.. The choice varied from Crunchies, to Mars Bars, Milky Ways to Maltesers.. we tried them all and soon had our favourites which would become the weekly ambrosia..

When I became a child of independent means.. i.e I had pocket money to squander.. I would hot foot it to the local sweetshop after school each day.. this mecca of sugar being situated just around the corner from my school... fatal! Ironically the dentist surgery was located next door to the sweetshop!The name of the shop as I remember was called..The Candy Box.. and had a pink and white striped awning.. we are going back a few years ..

I love to reminisce about the pretty pastel discs filled with sherbert..otherwise known as flying saucers, the Jamboree bags with the virtually inedible toffees but there was always the anticipation of the plastic toy within..fruit Salad and black Jacks..powdery toffee bon bons, refresher fizzy strips, sherbert fountains, dib dabs, vivid pink shrimps, dolly mixtures, jelly babies. licorice allsorts, jelly beans, smarties ..these were food of the gods to a sweet toothed eight year old and I spent many precious thruppeny bits ( often my bus fare ) on these wonderful confections. It is amazing that I was a skinny child and kept most of my teeth!

All these memories came flooding back recently when I stumbled across the charming and sublime on line store of Hope & Greenwood.. an emporium of nostalgia all wrapped up in wonderful vintage style ...I browsed through this delightful site .. salivating at the memory of all my childhood favourites..I am sure that some of you will be familiar with this company but if you have not had the pleasure of seeing their wonderful site please take a look inside.. I can guarantee you will be tempted by at least one of their sugary delights..

23 comments:

Hi, I just found your blog and I really like it. Talking about sweet tooth... It is hard for me to choose my favourite sweet. I just love all of them, but I think jelly beans would be on the top of the list. :)Take care.x

Hi MicheleHope & Greenwood is one of my favourite sites (I think I've done a couple of posts about them when I've been lucky enough to receive gifts from them, well not from them, the girls and M!). Their packaging is just wonderful isn't it? We use to get sweets on Sunday afternoon and were the same as yours but I also loved getting a quarter of sherbet pips in paper bags. Funnily enough my girls love all the sweets that you've just listed, things don't change that much do they?! Apart from me being much stricter with them about their sugar intake than my parents were with me!KimxYou've just reminded me about our dog who would know when my dad had gone to get the sweets, he would wait on the doormat for his chocolate buttons too!

Gosh that was a walk down memory lane. I too had a Candy box to shop in with a stripey awning but I don't think yours was in Marske by Sea was it?? I have visited the original shop in East Dulwich where my grandchildren live - I wonder if this shop has replaced it as it doesn't mention that one on the site. It was lovely and I wanted to spend hours in it. You can have a ration book for your child (self??) and they can buy so much stuff till the ration book runs out of money - lovely idea - yummy !! We used to call the bags 'lucky bags' and my Mam used to say don't buy any of those rubbisht lucky bags - so what did we go for - guess!I can remember choking of flying saucers and the sucking sherbet throught the liquorice stick and choking again. Can you rememeber the little sweet candy coloured rice krispi type sweets - wee had them cos you got loads for 2 ozs

I have the worst sweet tooth. As a child I loved flying saucers, dolly mixtures and jelly babies. I also love sherbet fountains. We also had a sweet shop near school and I would stock on 2oz of chocolate nibbles, which looked with rabbit droppings but tasted yummy. Even now I now vintage sweets - will definitely check ou that site. I can't wait til Easter and I can eat chocolate again! Think Maltesers are my favourite now!

Hi Michele,Thanks for introducing me to the Fantastic shop that is Hope and Greenwood.You've brought back some wonderful memories for me! I loved nut brittle and cola cubes, sherbet dib dabs and chewy sweets called teacakes I think.In fact I loved them all apart from jelly sweets,yeuch,can't bear the things.I like em nutty,hard or chewy Thanks!Rachel x

Oooh what a step back in time..I loved toffee bonbons, sherbert pips, sherbert fountains and anything liquorice.But did you ever get a 'Sweet Shop' at Christmas..a cardboard shop that you could set up,with the scales,scoops etc etc?We have an old fashioned sweet shop in town and I will definitely be paying it a visit tomorrow!!Sal;-)

ohhh happy days!i love sweet things but am restricted because of following a strict vegetarian diet - so a great deal of jellies are out of my reach!i do love white mice and flying saucers.....when i had my shop i sold sweeties from big glass jars - all weighed in my shiny scales and popped in pink and white stripey bags - they were my most popular addition to the shop!i have to say most of the folk that brought them were mums and dads - all remembering their own childhoods xthanks for reminding me of the good times i had as a shopkeeper!speak soont x

Thanks for dropping by my blogI appreciate your comments. As a child I too only had sweets on a Staurday or Christmas time. we would go shopping in the afternoon and my dad wold say choose something for later. I loved sherbert fountains or dib-dabs as we called them. Acid drops and pastel pink shrimps. Like 'Sal' one of my best ever Chrismas presents was a Sweet Shop with its little jars. Happy memories.x

Oh I forgot to say, there's a proper sweetie shop in Crickhowell in south Powys, not too far from Abergavenny. If anyone is in that direction, it's definately worth a visit as they still sell sweeties from big glass jars and put them into white paper bags!Liz

Hi Michele, fancy you finding Shirley Temple! Because of you I've been going around all day thinking about sweets of the past. My brother and I used to walk to school and before getting to school we used to stop to buy our fix of sweets for the day, fruit salad, blackjacks and sherbet fountains, at the little sweet shop at the bottom of the hill which led to our school, I am sure I used to get Twinkle and Bunty too! Can you remember the sweet cigarettes, I can see myself now smoking those and being incredibly silly! Thanks Michele, I really enjoyed this post. x

This was the basis of a normal and healthy diet, did you include Spanish gold, the coconut strands, and I love that sour sugar stuff in the triangle bags....mmm what a memorie jogger where has all the time gone. Wat a nice post.Easter HugsLynn xx

I grew up permitted sweets and chocolate on a very strictly controlled basis. Result - I have a very sweet tooth now! I have to avoid Granny Wobbly's fudge in Tintagel, as it is so yummy, he makes it fresh daily, the crumbly sort. I'm salivating now...

Sweets, or lollies as they call them over here, well my favourite British sweets would have to be, rhubarb and custards. Used to always have some walking home from town on a Saturday. Here in NZ, they have pineapple lumps, but they are covered in chocolate and the centre is hard marshmellow.

Oh man, Easter candy is my FAVORITE candy of all time. My absolute favorite is chocolate covered marshmello eggs. I actually have a carton of them sitting on my table right now. I also really like the chocolate eggs Cadbury puts out for Easter, and look forward to those every year. I have a bag of those on the other table. :D I usually grab a bag of Smuckers jelly beans too, but haven't yet this year. I'm not a big jelly bean fan, but those are out of this world. I'm not sure if you have them over there.

Yesss I do have a sweet tooth. But nowadays only for chocolate and self made pies. When I checked that website I came to the conclusion that there are probably many things the same all over Europe nowadays, but there is a huge difference in childhood candy from our era. So I cannot share a lot with you I'm afraid, except for those Swizzler lollies, that were coming en vogue when I was about ten years old. I loved them. When I see them now my teeth are already hurting a bit! Thanks for an inspiring post Michele, I might make one myself about dutch childhood candy....Have a nice day, L.

I have always had an incredibly sweet tooth and find it very difficult to single out one favourite. Our sweet eating was confined to Friday evenings when the grocers van would come round and we were allowed to step on board with Mum and choose sweets from his small selection, and to Saturday afternoons when Dad took us swimming and we passed by the newsagents on the way there to buy sweets for after the swim. I think it was always a quarter of liquorice comfits or aniseed balls. I made myself sick with aniseed balls on more than one occasion!

I had forgotten most of those sweets but memories come flooding back. When I was a girl I wasn't allowed to eat in the street when playing out but I was allowed to have a paper bag with cocoa and sugar in it to dip my finger into (!!)

I love all your easter bunnies. Happy easter. I have not got many childhood sweety memories. My mum was very strict and we did not have mnay cakes or biscuits or sweets in the house. She used to give me dried apricots and saltanias. My grandpa was a baker and when we visited his shop I could choose any cake I liked. Mum restricted it to one, it was normally a madaline or custard tart. I am a real choc a holic now.

About Me

Welcome to Cowboys & Custard. My name is Michele and I live in the beautiful south west of England. I have a passion for childhood nostalgia which is reflected in my creations..
I live with my wonderful man and son, an eccentric tabby called Pickles and a Border Terrier called Minnie.
In my idle moments (ha!) I co-own Milly & Dottie's Emporium and co-organise The Original Vintage & Handmade Fair..